A Marked Propensity for Carrion and Fodder

I was serious about taking my time with these edits. I’m not rushing the process. These days I start to tinker and watch takes, and lately, the various performances are being scrutinized more than I ever did before. Since one of these pieces is a drama, the performances are so much more important to nail. Selecting the most consistent and “true” acting is my mandate.

The first clips are a walking montage and the ending is a similar, non-dialogue piece but I wanted to modernize the editorial style for these. It’s not just some passé need to be current, as my justification is the mindset of the character we’re focused on, since her mind is somewhat fractured, so I wanted something editorial and effect-y to represent this visually. Learning that doing things “just because” or because “that looks cool” are lame to me. If there’s no reason to affect the color or stylize the footage, then don’t do it. Few things in a movie can cheapen it or make it appear to be amateur as all get out than people who try to follow the trends without understanding the reasons they were founded, or worse morons who try to create their own trends without any justification whatsoever. These never create waves, only mockery.

I’ve taken to duplicating all the footage and project files to a portable 1Terabyte drive so I can work on this at work or at home or even on my laptop anywhere. I never know when the muse will hit and I want to be able to take my metaphorical mallet and shape the orange metal while it is proverbially hot. Riding the wave of creativity when it starts to overtake one’s self should never be ignored.

I may attempt to create a 5.1 Surround sound mix for these two projects myself. I have never done it before and it interests me a little, especially since I have a DTS sound system now. I don’t have a 5.1 Surround audio card, but I might invest in one if I think it’s worthwhile. I prefer to find people who already have an interest in such things.

For the 2nd piece, the comedy, I made a list of all the CGI graphics work it will entail. I’m humbled by the idiocy on my part for co-writing this incredible amount of post production work. There are well over 120 graphic elements that need to be created for a short that is under 4 minutes. I already did a 4 second title sequence out of nowhere yesterday. I created a virtual credit card and flew it around with specular lighting.



In the end, it will all be worth it. So far, I’ve been dead wrong in my predictions, but I’ll go on a limb again and say this will be the most popular Sonnyboo produced short online I’ve ever been involved in. I don’t regret not being the director, as I am a co-writer, producer, and editor on the movie. There is still a lot of “me” in it, but I am not the sole creator and not the director. This title belongs to the lovely young lady.

George Caleodis and Amanda Howell do a great job in it. George’s comic timing slays me every time and Amanda, whom I had not previously worked kicked ass. It’s hard pairing George with strong female actors with strong comedic timing and Amanda went toe to toe with him just fine.

I estimate 2-3 more weeks of post production work on this short. There’s about 2 weeks left on the first short too. I’m getting some of the aforementioned editorial effects work done now, and doing the meat of the scene work after. Even when the rhythmic muse is not present, I can work on these technical and render intensive elements.

Here’s a conundrum for my friends: what is it about me that inspires so much jealousy? There are a few (can you believe more than 3-4) guys out there that read this here blog and just burn up with the hate and envy.

I guess I am still confused by the “this guy is fat, his girlfriend is ugly, he is gay, he loves Paris (the city, not the girl), he’s a total geek, and he’s a total failure…..” which is why they spend so much time reading my words, watching my movies, then writing diatribes and comments for literally over a year. If I were so pathetic and my life so devoid of meaning, then why am I worth so much time and attention? The answer is a resounding obvious “JEALOUSY” from some, but I have never known jealous to last well into the plus 1 year mark, and isn’t it a contradiction to say I’m such a loser, yet be jealous?

I am not a fan of Michael Bay movies, but I can’t find the productive or usefulness in the idea of going to his message board and writing to him semi-daily saying “You’re talentless and your momma is ugly!” I don’t pay to see his movies; I don’t read his blog, and it is amazing how little Michael Bay bothers me, although I will say I thought THE TRANSFORMERS was decent. I got no time for these people anymore. My recommendation remains the same as it always has; If you’re reading this blog and upset or unhappy, then stop reading it. Find something better to do with your time. Then again, these words are falling on the eyes of either imbeciles without the mental capacity to comprehend logic, or they are being read by emotionally imbalanced, irrational buffoons that are incapable of recognizing their desperate cries for mental and emotional rehabilitation. Either way, not really any concern of mine, just an idle curiosity. Perhaps one of my readers can shed some insight into this phenomenon, or perhaps a trained psychiatric opinion can….

Things are going great for me by my own standards, which are the only ones that matter to me. I am achieving the goals I set forth, so I have no concerns for what other people consider success or failure. When someone calls me a failure (like my mom or my sisters), I am confused more than anything. I’m doing what I want and getting where I want to go whilst simultaneously I am motivated to aim higher and continue my growth. I guess I don’t understand why I would care or give a Shiite about anyone else’s opinion. Why would this possibly matter to me? How can that possibly affect me? See what I mean? I’m confused, not angry or upset. Similarly, I wish that people who read my dissenting views about things I find pathetic would similarly, not care and believe enough in you to not worry about my opinion.



Has anyone else been watching Joss Whedon’s DOLLHOUSE series? Eh, it’s okay. It’s Joss so I’m in for the long haul, but it seems to be missing entirely his trademark HUMOR. There’s little irony or fun in the show. What balanced out the action and horror elements in BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER was the amazing humor and wit. So far, we’re lacking that in this show. I was however deeply disturbed by the performance of actor Graham Norris as a stalker. This guy scared the bejesus out of me! It was incredibly intense how he was stalking and spooky in his appearance as a psychotic nut job. Just look at this guy! COMPLETELY BELIEVABLE as a crazy wacko with a gun and nothing left to live. Joss Whedon, get out of my head!



Anywho, I’m finishing up some DVD burns for a client, and once this last disc finishes, I hope to get some personal editing done.


Peace out ya’ll,
Peter John Ross
Your friend in the Avril Lavigne Fan Club!

Pejorative Sagaciousness

I’m finally done sharing my cheer with the various families. I’m cranky and sleepy, but I’m going to party with some friends tonight. At least I have some new Blu-Ray’s and DVD’s to keep me company. I can finally see the extended cut of 24:REDEMPTION, the new Kevin Smith “A THREEVENING WITH KEVIN SMITH” which has been hilarious so far, and of course DEATH PROOF in HD along with INDIANA JONES and the inaugural Blu Ray CRITERION COLLECTION which is Wes Anderson’s BOTTLE ROCKET, which I cherish. The highlight is DR. HORRIBLE’S SING ALONG BLOG on DVD with “COMMENTARY: THE MUSICAL”. The sounds of Cannonball Adderly belting on the sax have set the tone for my weekend and I want to just take a day to myself and watch some movies in peace.

Once we get to January 2nd on through the rest of the year, I won’t have much time to rest or relax. Things will start to get busy rather fast. The wheels rotate ever onward and I’m ready. Several ideas ferment like a fine wine. Committing them to writing has been less and less cumbersome of late.



Some end of the year stats, as The Tale of Years in Rossdonia would not be complete.

The Cowtown Film Series was successful on many levels, including financial (although I need to still get a check from the theater… my bad). It was more work than I set out to do, but it was worth it. I feel good exhibiting the features and helping where I could with seeing some movies get completed that might not have otherwise. I am committing to doing another run of features in 2009, I just don’t know when yet. It won’t be 10 weeks, that’s for sure.

As already stated, I defeated my enemies. Those guys suck. Apparently, this statement in an earlier blog was taken out of context and ruffled feathers of people who fancy themselves my adversaries. I can think of nothing funnier than some guy I haven’t even taken into consideration or months got riled up, wrote blogs and then posted a multitude of comments all over my Funny or Die account because he so arrogantly thinks that I was talking about him. Imagine the arrogance it takes to read a blog and assume they are being addressed by capriciousness and vague notions.



Speaking of my blog, I average around 140 readers a day on all the various sites combined. That’s surprising. I only write these both as a cathartic expression and because I hate the impersonal sending of the same emails to friends and family of what I’m doing with a “cut and paste” function {CNTRL-C then CNTRL-V}. I have found that posting a blog and updating people via that conduit has been effective for the 10-15 people I intended to reach when I started. Now I had no clue so many other people were interested or reading. Even more confusing is the anguish and obsession it spurs in the few readers that are more akin to Lee Harvey Oswald than my more normal onlookers.

The UNCLE PETE videos were what I wanted them to be. I am pleased artistically and business-wise. They are in contract to be represented along with HOW TO DEAL WITH TELEMARKETERS via a Canadian-British agency that license short films for TV, web, cell phone, etc. I’ll give them a chance, as I’m still getting money from my old representation, but I’d like to see how different companies do. I’m thinking of dropping BIG FILM SHORTS as a distributor. They have been later and later on payments. Now they’re incommunicative at all, so I’ve stopped recommending them for representing short films. BLIP TV has been consistent and now matter how big or small, the checks come in quarterly and they always clear. I still made over $1,000 overall from short films for the year, and that’s just from my old material. Now that I have and will have more material as the 2009 goes on, I’m hoping to see an increase in income for shorts.

I’ve been working full time as a director/producer/editor for over 7 years as my sole income. Getting paid to do what you love to do has been one of my greatest accomplishments. It didn’t used to pay that well, but lately it has gotten better. I’m surprised the economy downturn hasn’t pinched my wallet as hard as I thought, but it has hit some and will continue to decline in ways for several months. I think more people would find their bliss if they could do what they want. My sincerest thanks to Scott Spears for making the last 2 years much more stable and reliable.

I can’t believe still that IN THE TRENCHES OF AN INDIE FILM is done. That’s something that was looming forever. I think subconsciously I was not giving my all into new projects or moving on until that was done. I promised myself it would get done. No one held my feet to the fire. Not many even cared I was doing it, but it meant something to me. Soon it will be on sale on AMAZON.COM (in a few days no less). Once I laid this puppy to tape the other day on a DVCAM master, it was like a release. I started deleting all the duplicate files on my internal and portable hard drives, knowing I’ll never have to need these again, and I was relieved. It was an invisible chip on my shoulder that needed released into the world.

GOODNIGHT CLEVELAND was another one of those albatrosses that needed to be taken away. We finished it, we screened it, and I deleted it. Seems like I have established a nice pattern for finishing feature length projects. This one was bittersweet in that the director wanted nothing to do with it, but so many other people involved were thrilled to see it complete. Giving Tim Lucas, an executive producer on the film, a DVD when he came to town was just as big a goal as screening the film. His closure meant as much to me as George’s.

The Cats of Rossdonia live on. My life with felines grows and develops into a strange and twisted tale that boggles the mind. I have learned much of unconditional love both for and from my little boy Vladimir Jack Bauer and his little black heart.



2008 was the year of shedding the past for me. Fulfilling all of my old promises, cutting loose the negativity, defeating my enemies (those guys suck), and moving on. I have plans. No one can stop me. 2009 will do it.

my new article in VIDEOMAKER MAGAZINE

Transitioning Naturally, a piece on using the camera to get from one scene to another without pressing a button in the computer. It's in the March 2008 issue of the magazine in print but also online for free.

The article/video features actors Rhoda Cronebach, Bryan Michael Block, and Brandy Seymour. Camera work by TJ Cooley.

CLICK HERE to read article online

and

the video of it is here (CLICK HERE)